Learning REST APIs

Author

Released

2/13/2018

Learn the basics of REST APIs. In this course, discover what REST APIs are, why they matter, and how putting them to use can help you build faster, more efficient applications. Review how HTTP and REST APIs relate, explore the six constraints of REST, and learn about HTTP status messages. Learn how to get started with consuming REST APIs to incorporate them into data-driven applications.

Topics include:

What is a REST API?

Who or what interacts with REST APIs?

Anatomy of a REST request

HTTP status messages

Request/response pairs

GET, POST, and DELETE

Skill Level Beginner

1h 8m

Duration

31,085

Views

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- Open up your favorite social media app on your phone,read the latest news on your tablet,search for travel deals on your computer,or watch your favorite show through a streaming service.What do all these things have in common?They're pulling information from the internetusing REST APIs.So what does that mean?That's what you'll learn in this courseand here is a small preview.Take your average web-based application,like a social media site.When you open it in your computer,you see a header with a bunch of navigation options,some sidebars with information, and a stream.

That stream updates continuously as you scroll down,always showing you more content.Now, here's how that works on the backend.The website itself is just a frameworkof templates for the application.It provides the physical headeror the sidebars, the main content area,and the skeleton for posts to be displayed,but no actual content.When you visit the site,this entire framework is downloadedand starts running in your browserand it sends automated requeststo the representational statetransfer application programming interface,or REST API, for that service.

Hey, can you give me the 50 latest posts from my stream?The REST API responds by sending a data packagewith just the posts themselves,and the framework pulls the bits and pieces outand places them in the correct slots in the templates.Scroll to the end of the listand another REST request is sent, received, and parsed.Use your smartphone and the same REST requestis sent, received, and parsed in an applicationdedicated to your particular operating system.

In a nutshell, REST APIs allow usto fully separate the presentation of contentfrom the content itself,and allows you and me to build lightning fast applicationsthat consume data rather than entire pages,which, in turn, makes for faster solutionsthat work everywhere and are readyfor whatever we build in the future.Knowing how these REST APIs workand how to work with themis the key to building powerful websitesand web-based applications.Sound exciting?I'm here to show you how to get it right,so let's get cracking.